ANSWER

The success of any project is dependent on a number of factors, but ensuring you have the right team competencies (people and skills) is imperative.  When a team is put together from scratch, ensuring that the team has the appropriate competencies to meet the needs of the organization is usually the paramount concern. Though it's not always analyzed in a formal way.  However many operations and technology teams exist as a permanent group within an organization.  As projects arise, resources (people) are assigned to various teams to complete the current projects.  In this instance, without a formal assessment, it's common that the assembled teams lack the necessary skills for success.

Performing a team competency assessment can reveal any team weaknesses so that new or additional team members with the required skills can be sourced.

Team competency assessments are straightforward.

1. Identify the key list of soft skills and hard skills needed for the project. 
2. Identify on a numeric scale (typically 1 to 10) the minimum level of competency needed for each skill.  It varies from skills to skill based on the project needs. For instance, an average competency level of 5 may be suitable for one skill while a 7 may be needed for another.
3. Rate each team member across each skill.

If all or most of your team falls below the required threshold for a particular skill, action can be taken to backfill the team with the necessary skillsets.

The illustration below shows how you can visually display the team competency assessment.  A program such as excel works well for generating a similar chart.

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Chris Adams
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